Im doing a lot of heavy weight excersise, and i want to build muscles but also loose weight. I love fasting because it’s so easy to loose weight and feel my very best at the same time, but im a little concerned that it will ruin my muscles im building.
Will a 3 days fast every week make my muscles weak? Will i still be able to grow muscles if i fast that much every week?
Hard to answer without knowing exactly what you are doing.
Is it power lifting? If so, are you still working on improving your lifts? How much are you lifting?
If you are training around something like 2x body weight squats you are beginning to push the boundaries of your ability to recover and improve enough to bypass your previous numbers. At that level gains are no longer from one session to the next but once a week, if that. Fasts would indeed get in the way of gains, and may even get in the way of enough heavy training just to maintain your 2x body weight squat.
But if on the other hand you are only doing 1x body weight squats (and are young, nothing else hindering your recoveries) it should not interfere much.
It’s better to do fasting for cutting or maintenance and not as much for bulking, although maybe you can intermittent fast and bulk. I go all out for months bulking til it feels like I’ve stopped growing and then stop eating to burn fat, going for rolling 48 hour fasts with protein refeeds in between to repair muscles, as I keep working out. You’re not going to get very big if you go back and forth between a bulk and fasting as muscle takes time
From what I’ve researched, you shouldn’t lose muscle mass during a fast, even while working out. When your body goes into autophagy, it actually starts preserving muscle by breaking down damaged cells and reusing them - to build muscle.
However, I don’t know what the effect would be to follow your intended fasting regime for an extended period of time.
With my routine, my biometrics have consistently shown increased muscle mass. Keep in mind I’m 51 years old, so the gains are slight, but definitely measurable.
Here’s a basic overview:
It’s working for me so far. This way I make sure I get clean proteins and fuels on days I work out. I’m losing weight, slightly increasing muscle mass, feeling great. My weight routine is varied (heavy, power, explosive, stabilizer, etc.) but always high intensity for 30 minutes. Losing 3 pounds of fat per week on average.
Depends on your body fat percentage and fast duration. Fasting can increase gains through hormone balance, increased HGH, decreased chronic inflammation, prioritised increase in circulation to larger muscle groups, decreased pain sensitivity, supporting and resetting the gut biome, antioxidants, stem cell activation. It’s good to exercise these groups during a fast because exercise encourages the body to burn fat harder while retaining muscle mass but good rest is also essential.